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StartupGrind

Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. It is powered by Google for Entrepreneurs. We host monthly events in 400 cities and 120 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies.

Startup Grind is a connected online and offline network of vibrant startup communities to help fuel innovation, economic growth and prosperity at the local level. While Startup Grind was founded in Palo Alto, California, our extended network of Startup Grind chapters are located around the world. Start a Chapter in your city or school!

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9 Places to Crowdfund Your Business

Seed capital for start-up businesses is becoming increasingly challenging to locate. Most entrepreneurs are beginning to search into crowdfunding platforms to raise funds for their start-ups.

The crowdfunding collective is amazing in how it works. There is money to be made in the investment, but the idea that people networking and pooling their resources, typically through the web, to support efforts that are someone else's "baby" (business) is astonishing. Typically initiated by other organizations or people, crowdfunding is utilized in support of a broad array of activities, which include citizen journalism, disaster relief, political campaigns, support of artists by fans, start-up funding, free software or movie development, as well as scientific research. Included here is a list of the top crowdfunding platforms to search into if you’re a start-up entrepreneur.

Kickstarter: It’s potentially the strongest and oldest crowdfunding platform. With more than 74,000 projects launched on the site, and 383 million raised via the site for projects, the platform possesses a success rate of 44 percent. It assists in funding all things from games, films, arts, music, technology, and design. The platform is full of innovative, ambitious, and imaginative projects which are brought to life via the direct support of other people.

WeFunder: This is a crowd investing platform for start-up businesses. They assist seed investors in purchasing stock for as low as $100 within the most promising innovative companies across the country. Also, they assist founders in raising money from their most passionate users who offer marketing evangelism, product feedback, as well as business connections. WeFunder started in January of 2010, and was founded by an MIT Sloan School of Management. Currently it boasts of a massive amount of investments, as declared on their site: over 9,200 funders pledge to invest over $25,000,000 in start-up businesses.

Indiegogo: One of the globe’s earliest and largest crowdfunding sites. They’ve assisted in raising millions of dollars for more than 30,000 campaigns, around 194 countries. Slava, Eric, and Danae, each attempted to raise funds for something they were passionate in, yet they came up short. They possessed good ideas, good networks, and the passion to work hard, but access to funds via traditional channels proved to be limited. The three were determined to discover a solution to the issue. Indiegogo was born; a crowdfunding solution empowering ideas and allowing individuals to easily donate money.

Crowdfunder: Based in LA, it’s a social network for investors and entrepreneurs to grow, crowdfund, and connect. The business puts connections, tools, and advice in the palms of investors and business owners at all phases in the life cycle of a company. Small businesses and startups may raise money through equity, and contribution-based instruments. Also, Crowdfunder is holding a sequence of contests in cities across the United States in which local companies compete, and obtain an opportunity to win funds up to $500,000. The website mostly focuses in the United States marketplace.

RocketHub: Project subjects tagged with tagwords from weird to beautiful, RocketHub is a Crowdfunding platform for the creative professional. It is getting lots of popularity recently because of its continual exposure from the media, and continued its dedication to giving help to businesses that are distinct.

SeedInvest: Focusing on U.S. startups, this site was founded by a group of MBA pros from Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania. They seamlessly bring together investors and entrepreneurs via an equity-based crowdfunding platform in such a way that has never been done before. SeedInvest will empower entrepreneurs using a platform to pitch to a multitude of investors all throughout the United States to raise seed funding.

Quirky: It’s a Crowdfunding site for inventors. It has created 241 products, possesses 188 retail partners and contains a community of more than 283,000 individuals according to the site. For hundreds of years, being an ‘inventor’ has been a difficult gig to crack. Complexities associated with engineering, financing, legalities, and distribution have stood in the way of smart individuals executing on their excellent ideas. Launching in 2009, Quirky rapidly has altered the way the globe thinks about product creation.

Startsomegood: A Crowdfunding site for social entrepreneurs. It’s a fresh crowdfunding site for social initiatives to raise money via a community of supporters. It’s possible to even view a project from India on this site.

Fundable: Founded by entrepreneur Wil Schroter, the investors on this site have the chance to invest in small companies for equity. Currently, the site is running a rewards-based funds platform.

About the Author

Christine Souffrant Ntim is a Haitian-American entrepreneur with over 7 years business management experience across 30+countries. She was selected for Forbes 30 Under 30, AdAge 40 Under 40, Haiti Changemakers 1804 List, and Caribbean Change Makers 30 Under 30 in 2016. She speaks on leadership, disruptive entrepreneurship, and exponential tech AI, VR, Robotics at the United Nations, TEDx, European Union Forum and over 20+ global conferences each year. She also interviews top influencers in the Middle East as the Managing Chapter Director of Startup Grind Dubai, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs.
Her entrepreneurial journey started with Vendedy , a social network connecting people to street markets. The innovative platform was featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Huffington Post, Inc Magazine, IBM Global Entrepreneur, Microsoft, the Clinton Global Initiative, Master Card Priceless Pitch, SheKnowsMedia Pitch, Chivas Venture Million Dollar Prize, Forbes Million Dollar Prize Top 40, SOCAP Gratitude Network, Rent the Runway Project Entrepreneur and Digital Entertainment World. Her efforts to digitize a $10 trillion dollar street market economy by centralizing the world’s 200,000 street markets was also featured in alumni networks at Singularity@NASA, Draper University, Dartmouth College Alumni Magazine, and Hult International Business School Magazine.
Today, Christine is an award-winning keynote speaker, traveler and serial entrepreneur who builds startup ecosystems for entrepreneurs. From digital accelerators across 7 regions: Africa, Caribbean, Latin America, Middle East, Asia, Europe, via GlobalStartupEcosystem.com to intense branding boot camps via BrandEntrepreneurs.com, Christine has made the startup development blue print an inspiring endeavor for both aspiring and serial entrepreneurs with her award-winning talk- “Entrepreneurship Without Borders”.

Startup Grind

Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs.